Nomad is an immensely powerful warrior-magician and the host of the Soul Warsminigame that he created. He will offer free tours of the battlefield along with a short explanation of how the game works, or a book that explains fighting in Soul Wars. The game is just a facade, however, and part of the sorcerer's secret plans that he executes in a huge cave complex beneath Soul Wars Island. Nomad has an unfortunate imp minion called Zimberfizz.

With a combat level of 699, he has the highest combat level of any quest monster in the game. He may be re-fought as a class A boss in the Dominion Tower (after Nomad's Requiem) or twice consecutively in a special match.

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Nomad built the Soul Obelisk, a powerful artefact featuring in the Soul Wars game, and used it to gain immense power from souls by channelling their energy into a throne of his making in secret. It is believed he did this to prepare to usurp a former master. He attempted to achieve this by harnessing the soul energy from the throne, supplied by the people playing Soul Wars on the surface.

However, by 169, Zimberfizz began to suspect something and recruited an adventurer to check out Nomad's tent. They entered it and discovered Nomad's temple, where they oversaw the man himself being threatened by a trio of elite dark warriors, whom he easily killed. Upon noticing the adventurer, Nomad warned them not to go any farther, but they did so anyway and, working their way through the temple, confronted Nomad on his throne.

Thinking the adventurer to be another assassin sent by his Master, Nomad proceeded to attack. He initially had the upper hand in the battle with various extremely powerful attacks, but was eventually defeated by the adventurer, stating that "[they] have doomed this world" before falling to the floor.

The adventurer and Zimberfizz then examined the body to conclude that Nomad was dead, after which the imp took over the role of Soul Wars host, planning to bottle and sell the obelisk's souls. However, as they left, Nomad stood up and teleported to an unknown location.

After the death of Guthix and the dawn of the Sixth Age, Nomad's actions remained largely unknown until the events of Dishonour among Thieves, in which Zamorak asks the adventurer to find him and recruit him in his heist. The adventurer encounters Nomad being attacked by Death, who claims that Nomad has stolen souls that belong to the Underworld, and that he himself is supposed to be dead. However, the player does take Nomad away, and Nomad becomes a key part of the heist team, tasked to steal the Stone of Jas. During this time, Nomad's Master from Nomad's Requiem was revealed to have been one of several over the years, an unnamed traitor to the Zamorakian cause. When the foreshadows of the heist team are defeated, Nomad reveals his true identity and is against the Zamorakian cause, and tries to claim at least a piece of the Stone of Jas, throwing his spear at the player.

If the player throws the spear back at Nomad, it will hit him and he will not get a piece of the Stone. Zamorak later enters the room, angry at his deception and hits him, causing him to fall to the floor. He then looks angrily at the player, and before Zamorak is able to kill him, teleports from the room. If the player dodges the spear, Nomad will grab a piece of the Stone before teleporting out of the room.

It was joked on the fourth day of Cryptic Clue Fest IV, that Nomad is actually a scheming dwarf called Honeydew inside a mechanical suit and that he built the Soul Obelisk with an iron pickaxe.

A bug existed that allowed Nomad to be killed without retaliating or using any of his special attacks by using a spirit kyatt. This allowed many low-levelled players that would not have been able to defeat Nomad normally to complete the quest. This has since been fixed.

Some medium-level Quest Cape owners were disappointed upon release, as Nomad is very difficult to beat even with high combat stats. This has sparked some debate among the forums. Although there has been some complaint, Jagex has mentioned that they will not weaken Nomad. The developers responded: "Too hard? Nomad is too easy! I wanted him to be much harder! Nomad himself will give you all the hints you need to defeat him while you battle him, so pay close attention to what is happening during the fight!" [1] Following the release of the Evolution of Combat, Nomad was inadvertently made considerably easier than he was before. A buff is planned at some point in 2015 as one of Mod Daze's personal projects.

With a combat level of 699, Nomad was the highest levelled attackable quest monster in the game at the time of his release (the Spirit Beast was higher although unattackable). His level was reduced to a mere 200 due to the Evolution of Combat. With the release of The World Wakes, Nomad lost this title to Kree'arra and General Graardor, who both have a combat level of 210. Despite this, the fight against Nomad is generally regarded as being much more difficult. Some time after the release of Legacy Mode, his combat level was changed back to 699, making him once again the highest-levelled attackable quest monster.

This was how Nomad was before the update.

Before the graphical update in association with the quest Nomad's Requiem, he looked exactly like an elite dark mage - this supported the idea that Nomad's master was Lucien (considering he had an army of Elite Dark warriors, mages and rangers). The idea of Nomad's master being Lucien was confirmed by Mod Mark in the official RuneScape lore Q&A from 4 November2012.

After the release of the Evolution of Combat, many of Nomad's attacks became bugged:

His flame vortices would hit an extremely high amount of 10,000.

His normal attacks would hit less as a player's health depleted. At 10 HP, his maximum hit was 1. This has been fixed.

Soul Blast would always miss. This has since been fixed.

Disintegrate would never kill the player, and no longer based the damage on one's maximum health. This has been fixed.

He would repeat "Pathetic!" constantly. This has been fixed.

Magic attacks against him had a max hit of 750. This damage cap has been removed.

Nomad has become much stronger since the events in Nomad's Requiem; in Dishonour among Thieves, he consistently hits 15,000 against Elite Wights when the player controls him. However, as the wights only have 15,000 life points, it is possible that Nomad is even more powerful.

Nomad bears a rather strong resemblance to the Metal Gear Solid 2 character Fatman.